Every year, we try our hand as cycling soothsayers and predict which tech trends will emerge in the coming 12 months.
While we like to reflect on what we got right, we rarely highlight what we got wrong.
We’ve decided to change that by swallowing a slice of humble pie.
Here, we look back at the bike tech predictions we made at the end of 2022 and pick out the ones that did not come to pass.
The tech tarot cards and tea leaves have been consulted again to divine what will happen this year. So if you still think we’re worth listening to, check out our 2024 tech predictions for mountain bike, gravel and road.
Gravel bikes will divide and conquer
We predicted more sub-categorisation of gravel bikes in 2023.
In fact, the bike industry has not heeded our advice on gravel bike categorisation.
“Gravel bike” remains a catch-all label for an increasingly diverse bike genre.
This means that despite sitting at opposite ends of the speed spectrum, the BMC Kaius and Surly Grappler remain in the same broad genre.
Road bike and mountain bike categories are long-standing. But as it stands, the future of gravel bike divisions is up in the air.
We’ll spend the whole year arguing about gravel rules
It turns out the debate about gravel racing rules died down last year.
The banning of aero bars from elite fields at Unbound was surprisingly uncontroversial.
Muddy conditions, not regulations, were a bigger talking point at the 2023 edition of the race.
The 2022 UCI Gravel World Championships course attracted ire from some quarters for being insufficiently technical, helping Gianni Vermeersch to win the men’s race on a road bike.
There were fewer arguments at last year’s gravel world champs, apart from the disappointing lack of TV coverage of the women’s racing.
The more 'gravelly' women’s and men’s races were both won on gravel bikes, albeit ridden by WorldTour pros.
This year’s UCI Gravel World Championships will be held on the same course as the 2023 UEC European Gravel Championships.
If the results in Halle-Leuven are anything to go by, the flat and fast Belgian forest tracks will again favour road professionals and we could see more road bikes than last year – European men’s champion, Jasper Stuyven, rode a Trek Domane SLR.
Shimano faces off with SRAM with the launch of a new MTB groupset
In 2022, we foresaw that Shimano and SRAM would launch new mountain bike groupsets.
Only SRAM did so though, with the introduction of XX T-Type Eagle Transmission AXS. This was followed by the more affordable Transmission GX later in the year.
Shimano’s equivalent top-tier groupset, XTR, is now six years long in the tooth.
The brand’s pandemic-induced supply chain issues were well-publicised. We believe these, and perhaps the unwelcome recall of Shimano’s road bike cranksets, could explain the delay in Shimano updating XTR.
Looking ahead, our money’s on 2025, not this year, for a new version.
Suspension gets even smarter
Developments in mountain bike suspension tech stalled in 2023 after rapid advances in recent years, such as RockShox Flight Attendant and Mondraker’s integrated MIND Telemetry system.
We didn’t see more wireless-controlled suspension systems released or wider adoption of the existing tech in 2023.
However, we expect Fox to overhaul its Live Valve system soon and SRAM to release new suspension tech.
Aero road bikes will make a comeback
The renaissance of the aero road bike did not materialise in 2023.
Instead, the all-round race bike category came to the fore.
One of the biggest road tech stories of the year was the release of the Specialized Tarmac SL8. The predecessor to this versatile race bike consigned the Venge, an aero weenie’s heart throb, to the wind tunnels of history.
What’s more, we’re still awaiting an updated Cannondale SystemSix.
Another new all-round race bike, the SuperSix Evo, adopted drag-reducing tech from the brand’s dedicated aero bike.
Classified wins at the Tour de France and takes over the world
Men’s WorldTour teams Uno-X Pro Cycling and Lotto-Dstny rode the Classified PowerShift system, a two-speed hub that replaces your front derailleur, in one-day classics but not at the Tour de France.
Although we rated the Classified tech highly, we don’t now foresee its wider adoption unless the company is bought by the likes of Shimano or SRAM.
Only if and when one of the big two integrates the tech into their massive groupset range will it go mainstream.
There’s also the fear of the unknown for Classified to contend with and the excellent shifting of modern front derailleurs.
Tiagra will become the new Shimano 105
This was yet another groupset-related blooper, this time on the road-side of tech.
We predicted the release of 12-speed 105 Di2 would make 11-speed Tiagra Shimano’s best-value mechanical groupset.
We said this would be the case even if Shimano unveiled a 12-speed, mechanical version of 105, which it did.
However, Shimano’s announcement of the Cues U8000 groupset will almost certainly kill off Tiagra.
Exactly what Shimano has planned for the drop-bar version of Cues is unclear, but we expect to hear more in 2024.
